Care to Dance?
by Aimlessly Unknown
Summary: The music plays on. Four people Rose danced with.


_Summary_: Four people Rose danced with.

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><p><em>jimmystone<em>

She's dressed in her shortest dress and her highest heels, feels like a hooker, and is drunk out of her mind when she arrives at the party. Jimmy is already waiting for her by the punch and he doesn't look like he missed her at all while she wasn't there. He doesn't ask why she's already drunk or tell her she looks beautiful. He just smiles that smile of his – all dark promises and danger – and tells her to come and dance with him.

She obeys willingly because this is _Jimmy Stone_ and he's her _boyfriend_ and, dammit, he cares about her.

They step onto the dance floor and she wants to imagine them dancing slowly despite the fast, almost staccato, music (_because that's what they do in the movies and she deserves that_) but they don't. Jimmy just presses his pelvis against her arse and makes her gyrate like some cheap hooker that he picked up.

Their dance is more like sex than dancing and for once she just wants Jimmy to hold her and tell her he loves her like he did earlier in their relationship but even that seems like too much to ask of him. But she knows Jimmy loves her and the sex is good anyway so she'll put up with it because Jimmy loves her.

Despite the fact that he doesn't tell his friends that she's his girlfriend; he just says she's his date.

And he doesn't spend the evening only with her; he spends most of it with other girls and his friends despite the fact that she knows no one there.

Rose Tyler always knew she wasn't worthless, that she was important to someone, but she's never felt more insignificant than when she dances with Jimmy Stone.

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><p><em>mickeysmith<em>

There is a dance at her school and she thinks she'll ask Mickey to be her date. He's a good man; a kind man. He's always been there for her no matter what, even through Jimmy he was there with a hug and kind words. He is the nice guy in the neighborhood and she needs that – deserves that.

Her hair is long and curly that night and her dress is periwinkle even if it clashes terribly with her skin. Mickey is dressed in a white suit with a black tie. It is acceptable.

When they dance it isn't wonderful. She doesn't fade into the music and the scent of Mickey (_stale oil and childish love_); she just dances. She exists. It feels like enough, like something she could settle for. She doesn't need the laughs, the stumbling, the sweet smiles, the soft kisses, she doesn't _need _it. She deserves it. She knows she does, but she'll settle for Mickey and a pair of kids with mocha skin and dark eyes.

She'll settle. Because there is no such thing as a true love connection – there is just the small string connecting her to someone tolerable, and as much as she wants the steel cable of love and warmth she just can't get it. Not now. Not yet.

Rose Tyler snuggles into Mickey Smith and feels more disconnected than ever.

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><p><em>jackharkness<em>

She dances with Jack once more. It is long before the Bad Wolf rears its head and far too late for anything to truly become something more. She is past the rare-sexy American and has reached the Jack inside who is just a little too fickle for her to grab onto. But he's _Jack_ and he's her lovable – perverted – brother in all but blood. So she dances.

With his arms around her waist and her arms around his neck as they twirl around the room; beyond them the Doctor smiles and turns his eyes away because it still stings a little that Rose believed more in Jack than in him.

Jack leers into her ear and they make light of it, giggling at one another as she cracks jokes about Americans and aliens she doesn't know. There is no passion, just love. Just warm arms to fall into and a mouth to smile when she's down, to believe in her and push her upright; it is not love, not true love that makes her legs shake and heart stutter, but it is affection and she can live with that.

He is better than Mickey, better than Jimmy, but he is also Jack and he is a far cry from perfect.

Rose grins up at Jack because he's wonderful even if he isn't perfect.

He's just not what she wants.

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><p><em>thedoctor<em>

She and the Doctor never truly dance. Not again after they meet Jack, instead they do a different dance. They dance around danger – around a monster, around a werewolf, around the stars screaming into the sky as they muck about with Time and Space. They dance around love – around swelling hearts and warm kisses on cold nights. They dance around each other – their skin sparks and tingles and they crave so much more than they get but they are the Doctor and Rose and they just _can't_.

But they dance all the same.

They dance, they twirl, they make music in the universe and think it fun – _your world of terror and death_ a queen once says – and it is contentment that sticks to their skin. But it is love and want and passion that bleed from the cracks they have formed from their exploits.

They dance until Rose is pulled away.

Right in the middle of the song.

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><p>Yeah...so...enjoy?<p>

Aimlessly Unknown


End file.
